Thursday, May 3, 2012

Getting more sleep helps to dampen obesity genes

If you tend towards being fat, never take a third shift job, trust me on that one. Remember my 400lb weight gain, a big chunk of that came when I was put on third shift, I had to take that job or end up homeless....When I was young, I was seriously sleep deprived, too much restaurant work, not enough sleep, and later too many pieced together jobs and bad schedules. This is another reason I think the lower classes tend to be higher in weight.

The results suggest that shorter sleep provides a more permissive environment for the expression of obesity related genes,” study leader Dr. Nathaniel Watson said in a statement. “Or it may be that extended sleep is protective by suppressing expression of obesity genes.”

Just how sleep interacts with the body’s weight gain processes remains unknown, but it could have something to do with sleep deprivation triggering a rise in stress hormones that increase appetite, decrease metabolism, and encourage the accumulation of fat around the waist.

What does this mean in a society that prides itself on as little sleep as possible? That is something that definitely needs changed.